


hranrad

by solitariusvirtus



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drabble Collection, F/M, Family Drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-20 03:27:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11912250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solitariusvirtus/pseuds/solitariusvirtus
Summary: The warg and the skinchanger have cause to come together.





	hranrad

i. Recollection thinned by pain and lack of air left a somewhat lightheaded Jon in its wake. He could do little but urge his heavy limbs into motion. Even the faintest of efforts was rewarded with pinching agony. 'Twas almost as iron bands wrapped around him in an attempt to restrict any escape.

Realisation hit him.

He was caught. Not in bands of iron, but, rather worse, a mound of snow pressed above him, frozen together by some manner of witchcraft. It had to be one of those woods witches playing their games, he reckoned, annoyance mounting. He felt much too weak. Would that he might count on his companion to find him, but they would sooner pull water out of stone. If they were not on the other world, that was.

ii. Ghost had not run far. Jon slipped into the new skin with some relief, watching through the beast's eyes for the mound underneath he'd been buried. They were near the camp, of course. That was naturally the case as the attack had been most brutal upon the crows. He could not say he was particularly mournful for any of them.

Their Lord Commander had fallen, he recalled. Most hard turned and fled. Kneeler, he jeered to himself; one whiff of trouble and they were running for the hills. He moved about in his new flesh, digging through the layers. He had to make haste.

iii. It was the scent Ghost caught which threw him off. Having inhabited the skins of countless wolves, Jon had come, more than once, across curious smells, and he'd learned that one could, with some attention, tell apart people by as small a detail as that.

Ghost turned his head, catching a glimpse of fluttering, tattered blacks. He growled, but Jon allowed no violence on his part. It was his chance.

From behind a tree came out a small form.

He'd seen her before, trailing in the wake of a sharp-tongued wench.

"Ghost, where is your master."

He scratched at the layer of snow beneath him, hoping that was explanation enough for her.

iv. The first thing he felt was a wet, smooth tongue sliding against his cheek and chin. The heat coming off of the appendage scalded. He would have pushed it away but he barely managed to move an inch. His eyes opened slowly and a vaguely humanoid form loomed above him. Pain singed his brow. Slick and wet, a tongue licked at the wound above his eye.

"Can you move, warg?" she questioned, her visage finally clearing.

Jon moved his head in a pale imitation of a nod but failed to follow suit with the rest of his body. He was much too busy dragging in air, famished lungs having their fill.

"We mustn't linger," she warned, moving away from him, the too-long cloak draped around her shoulders dragging in her wake.

v. Ghost gnawed upon a bone, unbothered by the faint crackling of a splitting log. Jon wished he could say he were half as comfortable as the beast, but no matter how he thought about it, he could no more relax than the stream could keep from flowing.

"We are safe enough," the girl said, dabbing her soaked bit of cloth against his cut. "I imagine they've pressed on and are not like to return."

Something did not add up. Still, his tired mind could not seem to grasp what it was. "We've a fire." That was all the protection they would have as well until they reached that blasted slab of ice stretching for miles to and fro.

"So we do."

vi. The weight shifting at his feet woke him. Having long since learned to sleep through the coldest of nights, if only in hopes of freezing in his sleep, unaware of death's grip, Jon was not used to waking in the middle of the night. Nevertheless, wake he did.

The kneeler girl slumbered undisturbed, firelight casting her face in bronze light, softening the sharpness of her expression. For a first she looked a young woman and not a harpy in the making. Disturbed at the turn of his thoughts, he peeled his gaze away from her and turned his eyes towards the entrance of the cave; might have stood so as well were it not for Ghost leaping within.

Relief followed.

vii. She knelt by the brook, filling the skin as best she could through the small gape he'd made in the ice. Jon watched her out of sheer boredom. Ghost had run off and would be back in his own time.

If she were at all bothered by the scrutiny, she hid it well, her earlier sower look back in place. He feared nothing could possibly pry it off, and he'd certainly no talent to lend to the cause. Safer to look on from his spot.

She stood to her feet and crammed the cork back in the opening. Without a word, she jumped over the ribbon of frosted water and took off.

viii. "Mance said a war was fought over Lyanna." To be fair, if the protagonists of the skirmish had been men enough, they'd not have dragged hundreds of others along. But then kneelers were a strange lot.

"I imagine some find comfort in such tales," the Lyanna before him answered. How had they reached such a point? "Mother named me for her; the Lyanna they fought over." He keeps his own counsel regarding his opinion on that. Doubtlessly, the kneeler girl would ring a peal over his head.

"Did she hope men would fight over you as well?" She snorted and gave him a sharp look.

"My hope is she thought it would keep them away."

ix. Arms still crossed over his chest, Jon regarded the remnants of the cursed home with apprehension. Ghost found no reason not to curl up in dried hay and Lyanna moved about with purpose, yet he remained unconvinced. "Don't you know Craster took his own daughters for wives? This place bears a black mark."

"If you believe in that sort of thing," Lyanna shrugged, having tidied a bit of space by the fire pit. "You could always sleep without." He scowled. "Craster is dead, his daughter-wives are scattered and we are in keep of a roof over our heads. It is that simple, warg."

Nothing was ever that simple.

x. The sharpness was half gone from the blasted axe. Jon grumbled to himself as he continued to chop firewood. The kneeler girl was doing the gods knew what between those walls and Ghost lied in the doorway, as though to purposefully block the path.

He caught sigth of Lyanna walking within. She was still about cleaning the place no doubt as her hair remained firmly trapped beneath a scrap of cloth. Women and their desire to turn every bit of space into inhabitable domain.

Ghost lifted his head when she passed by again. Lyanna acknowledged the beast with a long look.

She did not acknowledge him.

xi. She sat before the fire divested of the heavy cloak. For some reason he'd thought her wider than she truly was. But the layers upon layers of cloth could give such an impression. Her hair streamed down her back and shoulders, its lustre tamed by the fire-glow.

"What has you so forlorn?" he queried past one last swallow of salted meats. Though the sting of it still punctured his tongue, he found it was not so unpleasant, especially considering game was scarce.

"I am worried. For my family." Though the explanation was superfluous, he accepted it for she spoke seldom enough when not provoked into speech.

"If they are ever in peril they shall just change skins and be free of harm." He ignored that he'd not seen her leave her form.

xii. They came upon others quite by chance. Jon breathed a silent sigh of relief as he recognised a few of the faces. One of them was kin to the girl and she ran from his side, showing her age for a first. A summer child dumped into the winter snows, he thought to himself, though with none of the bite from before.

"Sped a few nights with a she-bear, have you?" one of the men asked, throwing an arm around his shoulders. "You don't look worse for wear," he laughed. "Not even tired; I suppose birds of the same feather do flock together."

xiii. Mance had the boy upon his knee, whispering something in his ear. Jon shared a look with Val whose finely arched brows rose in a perpetual look of vague surprise. He wondered how long it had taken her to perfect the look.

"It is good that you are returned," the man finally acknowledged him. "We were starting to wonder."

"How many did not return?"

Mance cocked his head to the side before responding. "Too many."

Just as he'd imagined. "And those Southrons. When are they arriving?"

"Whenever their king commands it." And knowing Stannis they would have some waiting to do.

Ghost growled softly.

xiv. "It could be a chance," Val confided, a smile painted upon her face. "I am not getting any younger, you know, and the thought occurs to me that 'tis not such an enviable position to be in. Look at Sigorn. A keep and lordship, he's grown fat for it as well." Laughter bubbled past her lips.

"And a passel of children. I never took you for a maternal woman." But he was not much astounded. She'd raised her sister's child. "And what do you want of me. I've no keep, nor lordship."

"Come to Winterfell with me. I've heard there are direwolves there as well."

"Southron wargs," he murmured under his breath, though he doubted it were the case.

xv. He guided his form through the darkened hallways. Jon did not rightly know why he'd slipped within Ghost, except that he felt restless and the night called to him. Val's words had been knocking about in his mind.

Winterfell. The name inspired such dread. 'Twere winter enough on the Wall. He's put his foot in it though. His word was give and Val would not hesitate to draw blood if he as much as hinted at turning back upon his promise.

He stopped snort, a familiar scent tickling his nostrils.

"Ghost, out for a walk?" He looked up at the origin of the question.

xvi. The beast nuzzled her hand as though to signal her work was not at an end. Lyanna muffled a giggle and scratched behind his ear. "Your master would be most displeased if he were to come upon us now. Best you make your way back."

The night was young, though, and she imagined Ghost did not take too well to being cooped up. After all those years in the wilds; small wonder he found keep walls stifling. Dragging her makeshift cloak over one shoulder, Lyanna smiled down at the wolf.

"I wonder if you would get on well with your brethren." Might be a warg could control that as well.

xvii. Lord Rickon was a child. Certainly taller than she recalled, but he still kept about his face that look he wore so well. His sister was nowhere in sight, though, which gave Lyanna pause. Neither sister was in sight, to be entirely truthful, but no one had expected Arya to greet them.

"Took you long enough," he commented, voice cracking slightly. She imagined he was none too pleased on that count, but feigned ignorance of the change.

"My lord, might be one of your sisters is available," spoke her sister, nonplussed at his behaviour. Just as well, Lyanna considered, wondering if she ought to expect Arya bursting through atop that beast of hers.'

xviii. As expected, Arya was in the forge. Lyanna greeted the smith with a pleasant smile. He was brother to the current king and might have done better for himself but there he was, working his fingers to the bone. And where he was, Arya was close by, possibly planning to double his workload.

"Finally returned, have you?" the Stark maiden, though Lyanna remained dubious that such was a fact, greeted, giving the man at the bellows some peace. "Sansa has been pacing up and down the halls, running herself ragged with preparations."

"Speaking of, I understood that she was called away."

"That; Alys begged her presence. Something about her mother laid low by her fourth child or somesuch. You know Sansa."

xix. Nails dug in her skin, even though the protection of her sturdy kirtle. Lyanna winced and gazed into Arya's face. "You look as though you've seen a ghost. The ears of Jon's direwolf perked and the warg remained seated. The lord of the manor had apparently been sent to his chambers in preparation of the supper meal.

"Who is that?" she nodded towards Jon. "Lyanna, who is that man? Where does he come from?"

Put ill at ease by such despair as which she witnessed, she pulled back from the other's touch. "From beyond the Wall. He is a warg."

"He looks like father." Dumbfounded, Lyanna let go of Arya.

xx. "What are you doing here?" she demanded of the seated man. It was well-established in her mind that he knew not his letters or numbers. "Ghost should not be allowed near such rare scrolls."

Jon glowered in reply. "Some crazy wench insists I look the spitting image of her father."

"That crazy wench," Lyanna explained, "is the lord's sister. You had best keep a civil tongue in your head."

"She had best keep her distance from me."

"She lost her father to the executioner's sword through no fault of his own. Eddard Stark did not deserve his fate and if she says there is a resemblance between the two of you, then it must be so." Why had she not seen it before? "There had better be a similar character as well."

xxi. To say Sansa was equally intrigued would be an understatement. "He does have the same sort of face about him. I can see why Arya would be so insistent." Though she'd managed to pry her sister away, it seemed that she too had taken an interest. "And you know naught else of him?"

"Indeed there was very little I could garner." Even when they'd been on the road together, he spoke little, and when he chose to it was not about himself. "I doubt there is anyone who knows much."

"It is too uncanny an occurrence. There must be some explanation." If there was, Lyanna did not wish to uncover it. Best to let sleeping dogs lie.

xxii. The warg levelled her a bland look. "Intriguing as that would be, how would it come about?"

"You cannot be that old, can you?" she questioned, distinctly uncomfortable at being the centre of his attention. "And there is the resemblance and the fact that all of you have had mastery over wolves at some point."

A mocking smile played across his face. "I've a lot of brothers then."

"Do not treat this so lightly, you daft man. You might be brother to the lord."

"Or, it might simply be that for some reason there is a likeness between myself and his father. Why should I wish to be any kneeler's bastard?"


End file.
